Follow The Evidence
by RebelByrdie
Summary: Grissom always said to follow the evidence but when it points to one of the LVPD's own Sara and the rest of the team have to make a life or death choice.  Sassy and assorted shenanigans to ensue.
1. Prologue

Title: Follow the Evidence

Fandom: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

Pairing: Sara/Sofia

Ratinig: R

Spoilers: All episodes, though I pick through the canon to find the gems and cut the rest.

Disclaimer: If I owned CSI in any shape, form or fashion would I still be working in retail? Um, no.

Author's Note: This is a rewrite of my previous story of the same name. I took the first version of this story down some time ago, and have just now figured out exactly what and how I wanted to tackle this rewrite. I started to hate the original version of Follow the Evidence about five minuites after I posted the last chapter. It has nagged at me for a long time, so now here I am going back and fixing it. I don't usually rewrite things, but this story has always been something of an issue with me. I like the core concept and theme but hated the way I went about it. It never came together and my writing style had yet to gel. In short it fell way short of my personal standards, especially compared to my later work.

For those who read the original, don't worry. I've kept the core ideas, and the pairing, but allot has changed! It's about 60/40 with the larger portion being new or at the very least rewritten material.

For new readers, I hope the fact this is a rewrite doesn't discourage you. It exists in it's own little bubble of CSI continuality and is not connected to any other story I've written.

Please read, enjoy and review!

Prologue

The pearl gray desert morning greeted Sofia Curtis with a stingy desert breeze and a sun that was already harsh and high in the sky. The obnoxiously bright light cut through her gritty eyes like dull razor blades and lodged into her brain. She pushed her hands through her damp blonde hair and squinted against the harsh daylight and wished she had her sunglasses. Sunglasses were a necessity in Nevada and She didn't know where hers were. Had she left them at the bar or the taxi? Either was possible, but she couldn't remember. Most of the evening was fuzzy at best.

Who was she kidding? Sofia scoffed at herself. She had gone out with a single goal in mind: to get blackout, fall-down, forget her life _drunk_. Why? God, she had list of reasons that was at least a mile long, but last night's reason had been the Hannity Case. Darryl Hannity had killed his brother-in-law. He had beaten him to death with a shovel and buried him in a shallow grave on a strip of desert off of the highway. They had him dead to rights. He had no labia, and they had his fingerprints on the murder weapon, and his epithelial DNA on the victim. They had a solid case, damn near a slam-dunk or they had until she had taken the stand. Sofia covered her aching eyes with her hands and sighed. It hadn't been one of her finest hours. She had slung her jacket, once pressed and court ready, over her shoulder. It's sleeve and collar were crumpled and wrinkled into non-recognition. Her once starched and tailored white shirt was untucked, the sleeves were rolled and the buttons undone to reveal the faded baby blue camisole underneath. Her panties were in her pocket. Sofia had to smirk at the situation: She hadn't done the walk of shame quite like this since _college_.

All in all, yesterday had been a shit day. She had gone from testifying on a slam dunk to having her entire career dragged through the mud by a slimy, ambulance chasing, jackass defense attorney . He had brought up every single misstep in her career and he had even tried to bring up her personal life. Howard Wexler Attorney at Law had all but waved around the results of her last pap smear before the judge had threatened to hold him for contempt. Kyle Addison, the ADA, hadn't been expected the personal attack and she hadn't been prepared to defend herself. It had been, Sofia fumed, a disaster and the jury had _lapped _it up. They had been a _Law and Order _spoiled crowd who liked flashy arguments and so-called expert witnesses. In short they had been doing their civic duty _and_ attending the circus. Three grueling hours of putting her through her paces like a dog and their slam dunk had started to look very _iffy_. The verdict wasn't back yet, but the fact that it had taken more then ten minutes told Sofia what she needed to know. She went strait from work to the nearest bar.

She'd arrived in a cab, ordered tequila and hadn't planned any further then that. Her non-plans had been hijacked by a stunning brunette with smoldering dark looks and a slow, sexy smile. Her eyes,though, were what had caught Sofia's attention in the mirror that ran behind the bar. They were hypnotic, dark and incredibly sad, and Sofia hadn't been able to look away. Three shots, two for herself and one for the lady, later she _finally_ recognized her. She realized exactly whose brown eyes she'd been staring at and why they were so sad. Everyone knew that she had taken the recent death of her teammate to heart. Sofia couldn't blame her. The boys in Homicide were like a second, but equally dysfunctional family to her. It was a possibility that they all lived with but hoped and prayed they never had to deal with. The job was dangerous and not every case ended with a nice, tidy trial. Maybe, Sofia reasoned, if she hadn't been so down, she wouldn't have motioned the other woman over. Maybe is the brunette hadn't have been so lost, she wouldn't have come. Their work relationship was touch and go at best, and it really wasn't a good idea to fraternize with on the job. Not that the brunette was on the job in exactly the same way, Sofia reasoned, but the unwritten rule had to exist for a reason. Maybe if they both hadn't been drinking heavily things wouldn't have gone quite so far. Besides, hadn't she heard rumors about the brunette and her boss possibly being an item? She was sure she had heard about a clandestine and age-blind chemistry between the superior and subordinate. Hindsight was 20-20, and at the time her inhibitions had been a bit askew. All the doubts and head-splitting reasonable thoughts she was currently having aside, it had been a truly great night. What she could remember of it, at least. So as long as they both minded their Ps and Qs on the job it would be like it never happened. No matter how many tell-tale marks were on both of their bodies. Sofia swerved at the last moment to avoid another person walking in the opposite direction on the narrow sidewalk. Sofia ducked her head, to hide the full-face blush, and eased around them. Knowing her luck it was on of the neighbors who had heard more then they wanted to the night before. She felt sixteen again, having to sneak home before someone got the right idea about her and her best friend Claudia Stevens.

Her cab, the one the sultry brunette had called for her, honked impatiently at the curb. She would have just enough time to get home, take an aspirin for her god-awful headache, take a shower to wash the smell of tequila and sex off and slide into work about ten minutes late. If she was lucky Brass would overlook her tardiness this one time. She slid into the blessedly dim cab and rattled off her home address. The driver was quiet and had the radio low enough to ignore. She slouched down in the seat and sighed, it was going to be a _long_ day. Sofia looked around serendipitously for her sunglasses, but came up empty. She had already gotten lucky once, and the glasses were easily replaced. She was pretty sure she had a spare pair in her desk drawer.

Sofia looked over her shoulder as the cab rounded the corner and the last thing she saw was the apartment complex's overly-cute house shaped mailboxes. She was hung-over, and sore in all of the best places and she couldn't help but smile despite the twinge of regret that was already settling into her guts. So this was how the tourist women felt every day? God, she couldn't imagine flying across the country to get _this_ feeling especially when one could look in their own backyard.

"Idiot."

She scoffed at herself, but put only a little effort into it. It wasn't like this tiny tequila mistake was going to effect her life any further then it already had. There might be a few awkward moments at meetings or in the ladies room, but they were both consenting, unattached adults. There was no reason to act like they had committed a crime.


	2. Chapter I: Late Day Early Night

_Chapter I_

_Late Day Early Night_

Slim shafts of sunlight filtered into the room. The only movement in the room was that of the near-invisible dust-motes that danced in and out of the light. The living room was a maze of half-empty cardboard boxes and didn't appear to live up to it's name. It was the least lived in room of the apartment. The boxes, much like the woman whose possessions they held, had fallen into a sort of limbo. Six months had seen some unpacking, the necessities had made it to their proper places, but most of the boxes were untouched. The assorted books, knick-knacks, odds and ends would eventually find homes on shelves and walls. If one could ignore the boxes, which was nearly impossible, the rest of the apartment was neat as a pin. It was, however, the sort of tidiness that came from benign neglect and not a dedication to cleaning.

The apartment's resident hadn't taken the time to make the collection of rooms into a home yet. The walls were still a generic eggshell white the carpeting was a lackluster beige. There was no decoration or personal touches, the apartment could have belonged to anyone or no one. There was one glass in the sink and a twist-tied bread bag with two slices of bread on the counter. It was a spartan style of living that fitted many of the lifestyles and people that Las Vegas attracted. The empty bottle of tequila and two shot glasses on the coffee table were the only evidence that the living room had _ever_ been inhabited.

The bedroom, in contrast, was the most lived in room of the apartment. Blackout curtains kept the room dim and dark and the building's air conditioning system kept it cool. This room held a _little_ personality to it. The dresser and closet had clothes in them and a chair had a single outfit laid across it. An alarm clock, desk lamp and a thick hard-back book sat on one of the bedside tables. The other table held a chattering police scanner and two cell phones, both of them plugged into their respective chargers. While the dresser had several picture frames on it, the bedside table held only one. If the coca-skinned man in the picture knew about the honor he'd been given by the woman his arm was around, his wide smile and twinkling green eyes did not reveal it. The picture had been taken several years earlier when life hadn't been so complicated.

The bed was the centerpiece of the room, it was large and covered with sky blue sheets and a slate gray comforter. A woman, the apartment's sole occupant, was sprawled across the approximate middle of the bed. She lay flat on her back and was, from all appearances, dead to the world. Her arm, stretched out across the unused pillows, twitched and she mumbled incoherently. Though her sleep was deep, it was not pleasant. She was the woman from the picture on the bedside table, a few years older and far sadder. Her sleep, and the dark images that came with it, would come to an end soon. It always did, but Sara Sidle had long ago trained her body and mind to function on little to no sleep. Still, habit and training aside, three to four hours of sleep out of the last forty-eight was pushing it. She had overdone it, again, and needed more then a quick cat-nap to recover.

The distress code, practically screamed over the police band, did not wake her up. She didn't even twitch. A scant twenty minutes after the harried voices died down, one of the cellphones began to ring. It was her personal phone and the ring tone was the theme to the _Ghostbusters_. It hadn't been her personal choice, but Greg did enjoy playing with other people's phones. The song played through three times and then fell silent again. A minute passed, then two, before her department-issued cellphone rang. It's ring tone was shrill and basic, and it had the same effect on Sara as being doused with a bucket of water. Her eyes snapped open and her arm shot out the table. Her hand found the phone without groping and grasping around and she answered it in the middle of the second ring.

"Yeah?"

Her voice was rough, like she'd gargled with gravel, and she could already feel the jagged edges of a killer headache forming behind her eyes. She peeled her tongue off of the roof of her mouth and listened to what she was being told with every ounce of concentration she could muster.

"Uh huh."

Sara sat up and the sheet slid away to reveal bare skin. She ran her free hand through her dark hair and grimaced at the movement. She hadn't planned to drink quite so much and now regretted it. There were few times that alcohol and she tangled that she didn't regret. At the moment, though, she was especially regretting her decision. Captain Jim Brass was on the other end of the conversation, calling her in. She looked at the clock, it was a little after two pm. She had gone to bed somewhere around eleven in the am. Gone to bed, passed out, it had been something like that. She had to stop drinking tequila and running around with high-spirited blondes.

Had her friend gotten home okay? Sara smirked at her own foolishness. She was a grown woman and she had taken a cab. Of course she had arrived home safe, sound, and hopefully just as embarrassed and hung-over as Sara felt.

She slid around and put her feet on the floor. She leaned the phone against her shoulder and stood up. Her knees didn't wobble and she didn't fall down, that was good. She was only hung-over, not drunk anymore. The drowsy and slightly nauseated brunette walked out of the bedroom and into the hall, avoiding boxes as she moved. There was, as always, paper and a pen on the kitchen counter by the refrigerator and she scrawled down the necessary address between her grocery and to-do lists. Captain Brass ended the call with an apology, which she waved away casually. It wasn't Jim's fault she hadn't slept. Just as it wasn't her fault that both Days and Swing were overloaded and already maxed out on overtime. It wasn't their fault that someone had started their day off with a bloody murder, but it was their responsibility to investigate it.

It was _far too early_ and she was _way too hung_ over to be so damn philosophical. It was probably one of the nasty little habits she had picked up from her brief and disastrous relationship with Gil Grissom.

Ugh, now that was something she _really wanted_ to dwell on. Disgusted with herself and feet dragging across the ugly carpet, Sara headed towards the shower. She bit back a curse when she stubbed her bare toe against a box. It was going to be a _long_ day.

Her shower, scalding hot then ice cold, shocked Sara into full consciousness. Her headache also eased a little, though she would pop a couple of Extra Strength Tylenol to finish the job. She dressed quickly in jeans and a black tank top and once again thanked her lucky stars that the lab's dress code was practically non-existent. She finger-combed anti-frizz serum through her once again shoulder length hair and pulled it into a pony-tail. A quick check in the mirror told her that she looked decent, and that was all she could hope for. Early roll outs didn't make for high fashion. Sara dodged half a dozen boxes,, and once again swore to finish unpacking soon. She collected her keys and other necessities, headed out the door and promised herself Starbucks on the way.

Her Honda, a car that had served her well since she'd bought it over a decade ago in San Francisco, was in the shop. The transmission, the original factory build, had died a long, drawn out and expensive death. So while the boys of Sin City Transmission worked their magic, she had signed out a Tahoe for take-home. It was a gas hog, handled like a barge and she couldn't get the radio to play anything but Nick's Country music, but it did have a cup holder and air-conditioning so it wasn't all bad.

The address was north of the interstate and east of the strip, which put it squarely in the worst part of town. North East Vegas was _rough_ territory: ask any native and they would tell you to avoid the area like the plague. Thugs and bangers called it's narrow streets and twisting alleys home. Drug dealers and strung out hookers haunted it's corners and only the most foolish tourists ended up there. It was a high crime, low income, nest of criminals and those too poor or disillusioned to escape it. Sara had spent far too many hours working the North East Vegas beat. Today's 419 was just another drop in an overflowing bucket.

Only forty-three minutes after Brass's call had jerked her awake Sara saw the blue lights and yellow tape that told her that she had arrived at the scene. CSIs, even those who rushed to the scene like she had, were never the first to arrive. She was used to seeing a couple of patrol cars waiting on her. Sara's hand clenched around the steering wheel and the coffee she'd enjoyed soured on her stomach. An army's worth of patrol cars, at least one from each precinct and county and highway patrol, were parked on the block. There were far too many cops present for it to be another run-of-the-mill gang shooting.

Her heart jumped in her throat at the implications and despite the pleasant temperature in the vehicle her skin broke out in goosebumps.

Not again.

A cold sweat broke out on her back and she swallowed bile. Jim hadn't said that it had been an Officer Involved Shooting or that an Officer was down or God forbid another fallen in the line of duty. There had been far too many officers fall in the line of duty over the past year.

Sara parked the Tahoe and mentally prepared herself for what was about to come. Her long day had just gotten longer, but it didn't matter. She wouldn't stop until this crime was solved, period. She cut the engine and opened the door and stepped onto the sidewalk. The first thing to hit her was, like always, the heat. A sluggish breeze stirred the air and while it did nothing to help with the heat it brought the scents of the crime scene with it. Sara smelled bubbling asphalt tar, the exhaust fumes from a dozen police vehicles, the sickening rot of overflowing garbage cans and the coppery tang of fresh blood. She walked around the Tahoe and pulled her kit out of the trunk. She knew that it was fully stocked and had a feeling that she would need everything in it. When you could smell a scene before you could see it, it wasn't going to be pretty.

Fluorescent yellow crime scene tape roped off the area and at least twenty cops, both on duty and off, stood on both sides of the perimeter. She looked around and spotted several unmarked sedans, some of them belonged to officers and others would belong to the press. It never surprised her when reporters beat her to a crime. Reporters were a sly, well connected and ruthless group that, in her experience, stopped at nothing to get the story they wanted. She knew the officers, loyal to a fault, held them at bay far away and gave them absolutely nothing. Corruption was a problem in Vegas, but when it came to one of their own the blue line would hold. One of the uniforms, she knew him by face but not name, lifted up the tape for her to pass under it. She offered him a small smile but was met with only a stern and stoic face. That's all Sara needed to see to confirm the seriousness of the situation.

The house, crime scene, was unassuming. Despite the heavy police presence it actually looked peaceful from the outside. It was neither in better or worse shape then the others of the neighborhood. It was a small ranch-styled house that looked like it had been built in the sixties and had only been given the absolute minimum amount of care. The paint was dull, faded and peeling in several places. The roof of the garage sagged and the short driveway was pitted, cracked and oil-stained. The only visible sign that someone lived there was the brand new cherry red corvette corvette that was parked in front of the garage. The car was definitely worth at least twice what the house was. That was an odd piece of information she tucked away for later consideration.

Captain Brass and Dr Robbins were waiting at the open front door. She pushed her sunglasses from her face and propped them on the top of her head and met Jim's gaze.

"How bad?"

Author's Note: Yeah, I'm still alive.


End file.
